A golf outing fundraiser organized by UW-Eau Claire will be held June 28 at the Eau Claire Golf & Country Club. The event will begin with lunch and registration at 11:30 a.m. Proceeds from the golf outing will support the Blugold Beginnings program, which provides scholarships, learning materials and mentoring for area students in grades five through 12.

Participants can pay $140 for a single player or $700 for a five-player team. The fee covers 18 holes of golf with cart, lunch, gift, prizes, silent auction and dinner. An optional skins game costs $20 per person. Full story.

Enjoy some alumni summertime fun!

The following opportunities to gather with fellow UW-Eau Claire alumni are scheduled for June and July:

Thursday, July 29: Harbor Lady alumni dinner cruise, Sturgeon Bay. Alumni and friends are invited to go on a relaxing two-hour dinner cruise aboard the Harbor Lady yacht. Boarding begins at 6:30 p.m. from the Stone Harbor Resort dock, 107 N. First Ave., Sturgeon Bay, with departure at 7 p.m. Cost is $40 per person, which includes a dinner buffet while cruising along miles of beautiful shoreline on Sturgeon Bay. Cash bar will be available; prize drawings will be held. View invitation.

A Grafton High School graduate has received the Grafton Faculty Alumni Scholarship, which was established in 2009 with the UW-Eau Claire Foundation by six Grafton High School teachers who are UW-Eau Claire alumni, along with other UW-Eau Claire alumni from Grafton.

Olivia Aschenbrenner, who received the $500 scholarship, had a 3.8 grade-point average in high school and plans to major in one of the physical sciences at UW-Eau Claire. She is a triplet, and her two triplet sisters, Rachel and Claire, also plan to attend UW-Eau Claire. They will be joining an older sister, Molly, who is a senior at the university. Full story.

Brian Carlisle named dean of students

Brian Carlisle

Brian Carlisle has been named dean of students at UW-Eau Claire following a national search. Carlisle's appointment is effective July 23.

Carlisle most recently served as associate vice president of student affairs and dean of students at the San Francisco Art Institute. His responsibilities included supervision of career resources, international student affairs, personal counseling, student activities, student government, orientation, commencement, disability services, judicial affairs and residential life. Carlisle expanded the programs and services offered through the institute's student affairs division, produced the division's first strategic plan and negotiated contracts for a new residence hall. Full story.

Professor receives federal grant to establish new international business major

Dr. Rama Yelkur

A professor at UW-Eau Claire has received a $190,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Education to prepare students and Wisconsin businesses to be more competitive in emerging markets.

Dr. Rama Yelkur, professor of marketing and coordinator of international business programs at UW-Eau Claire, wrote the grant to continue efforts by the College of Business to internationalize the curriculum, faculty, students and the business community.

The Business and International Education Program grant will support the development of an international business major, international study scholarships and international scholarships for students, faculty, travel, conferences and related activities. Full story.

Teens with Asperger's syndrome learn about college life

Participants in the 2009 Camp Campus discussed career exploration during a session in UW-Eau Claire’s Career Services.

Twelve high school students with Asperger's syndrome are spending this week on the UW-Eau Claire campus to get a sense of what it will be like to attend college.

The teens, eight boys and four girls from Wisconsin, Minnesota and Illinois, are attending the second annual Camp Campus offered by UW-Eau Claire's Center for Communication Disorders. The program, funded by a Medicaid Infrastructure Grant, is specifically for students with Asperger's who have completed their junior or senior years of high school and plan to go to college. The camp began June 13 and runs through June 18.

"The emphasis is on self-advocacy and on greater independence for these students with special needs," said Dr. Kristine Retherford, chair of UW-Eau Claire's communication sciences and disorders department. Full story.

Freshman class to include four National Merit scholars

Four of the approximately 2,025 new freshmen enrolled at UW-Eau Claire this fall are National Merit scholars, according to admissions counselor Kristin Blake.

New immersive learning program seeks students for semester in Argentina

The UW-Eau Claire TIES program will offer students immersion experiences similar to this one in Argentina in 2009. UW-Eau Claire geology students include Crystal Nickel, Bryan Hardel, Anne Gauer, Taylor Crist and Elizabeth Balgord.

UW-Eau Claire is accepting student applicants for a new experiential learning program scheduled for the 2010-11 academic year.

The Thematic Interdisciplinary Experiential Semester program offers a hands-on, project-based learning environment in which students travel to a specific location and are immersed in a central theme taught by instructors from several different university departments over the course of a semester.

The first TIES program will focus on the cultural and environmental changes that have taken place in Mendoza, Argentina, an agricultural region in the eastern foothills of the Andes Mountains. Participants will study in Mendoza from January-May 2011. Orientation for the trip will begin in September. Full story.

Golden Key honor society wins book-drive contest

The UW-Eau Claire chapter of the Golden Key International Honour Society and the University Bookstore recently collected more books than any other college, university or library in this year's Better World Books textbook drive.

Internet bookseller Better World Books collects used books and textbooks from more than 1,800 college and university campuses and 2,000 libraries throughout the United States and Canada. The books are then resold in an effort to "go green" and support worldwide literacy initiatives. As a for-profit social venture, Better
World Books has converted more than 33 million donated books into more than $8 million in funding for literacy and education and diverted more than 13,000 tons of books from landfills. The annual book drive is one of the UW-Eau Claire chapter's biggest projects. Full story.

Steam line construction project begins

Work has begun at UW-Eau Claire on the construction of a new $2.9 million steam line from upper to lower campus. The anticipated project completion date is Oct. 15.

The new steam line will provide steam to the new university student center, for which construction is slated to begin in late fall. It also will provide redundancy for the university's current steam line system, which was constructed in the 1960s, said Terry Classen, UW-Eau Claire director of facilities planning and management. Full story.

Alumni success stories

Read about the accomplishments of these and other UW-Eau Claire alumni on the Alumni Success Stories Web pages:

Warren Petryk '78, a UW-Eau Claire philosophy graduate, has announced his candidacy for the 93rd Wisconsin Assembly District. Full story.

Justin Vernon '04, a UW-Eau Claire comparative studies in religion graduate, performs as part of the blues duo The Shouting Matches. (Photo by Andi Stempniak of the Eau Claire Leader-Telegram) Full story.

Show how much you know about UW-Eau Claire — AND win great Blugold prizes! E-mail your answer to this month's question to the Blugold Trivia mailbox (trivia@uwec.edu). Those sending correct responses to this month's question will be entered in a drawing for a UW-Eau Claire insulated mug. The name of this month's Blugold Trivia winner will be published in the July issue of e-View.

June Blugold Trivia question:

Four of the new freshmen enrolled at UW-Eau Claire this fall are National Merit scholars. Including these most recent recipients, how many students at UW-Eau Claire hold this prestigious scholarship?

Know the answer? E-mail it, along with your name and class year, to trivia@uwec.edu. You'll be notified by e-mail if you are this month's winner!

May's winner:
Congratulations to Anne-Marie (Virnig) MacDonald, a 1982 UW-Eau Claire management information systems graduate! Anne-Marie has won the May Blugold Trivia prize in a drawing from among those who correctly answered that the name of the band formed by alumnus Justin Vernon while attending Eau Claire's Memorial High School was Mount Vernon.